


Screaming Into The Void

by This_world_of_beautiful_monsters



Series: Aftermaths [6]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW Comics), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Anorexia, Astral Projection, The Astral Plane, sorry if this is confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27551821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_world_of_beautiful_monsters/pseuds/This_world_of_beautiful_monsters
Summary: In the aftermath of TMNT #100, Leo tries to track down his parents' ghosts. He finds something else instead.
Relationships: Leonardo & Oroku Saki
Series: Aftermaths [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983247
Kudos: 11





	Screaming Into The Void

Leo hasn't eaten anything for a week.

It's easy to get away with it; family meals have pretty much become a thing of the past since Father died. Being in the same room with someone else just means having to deal with their complicated, painful feelings along with your own, and no one really wants that. They've all been fending for themselves in the meal department--they're supposed to, anyway.

So no one notices that tea is the only thing that's passed Leo's lips for the past seven days. No one's even gotten close enough to hear his stomach growling, to see the way his hands shakes when he pours from the kettle.

He knows that he's doing something foolish. A leader is supposed to keep himself in peak physical condition, after all. But a leader is also supposed to accept when he needs help, and Leo's in desperate need of help--Raph left again, the Shredder is back, New York is being torn apart by mutagen, _Stockman_ is mayor, his family is in ruins, and he has no idea how to cope with any of it.

So he considers a few skipped meals a necessary sacrifice when it offers him a possible chance to talk with his parents.

He's been trying to contact them via endless meditation for the past two months, and has come up with absolutely nothing. Not a hint, not a whisper, not a breath of Tang Shen's voice or a flicker of Splinter's robe. Every failed attempt felt like another stab in his raw and tender heart; he was quietly terrified that they might be ignoring him on purpose, as punishment for being a disloyal son, for failing to protect either of them.

And then it dawned on him--he can't just call up his parents like he's using a cell phone. The first time Tang Shen spoke to him, he'd been in the terrible throes of Kitsune's brainwashing. The first time Donnie spoke to her, he'd just been beaten within an inch of his life by Bebop and Rocksteady. The first time they'd all seen her together, they'd been on the run from the Collectors, on the verge of getting exiled from every dimension.

To talk to the beloved dead, Leo will have to be in a truly desperate situation first. Simple drowning in his grief and anxiety isn't enough; the danger needs to be real.

So, just like that, he stops eating.

The hunger presses on his belly, a slow and painful burn, but he doesn't mind. Starvation became an old friend when they were hiding in the woods all those centuries ago. Leo's father, back when he was called Hamato Yoshi, taught them all to concentrate and focus through it. Leo trains and meditates as if nothing has changed, and he pulls it off pretty well.

Still, there are no signs of his parents, no matter how long he stays under or how high a state of consciousness he reaches. So Leo decides to take it one step farther.

One night, he slips his way out of the house and makes his way into the woods, to the river where he spent so much time when he first came here. He sways a little as he walks, but just a little, so it's okay.

He dives under into the river, relishing how icy cold the dark water feels on his scales. Leo stays under as long as he can, twenty minutes if not more, until his lungs feel like tortured coals.

When he emerges, shaking and freezing, he resists the urge to hurry back to the house and warm his cold blood back up. Instead, he sits crosslegged by the brook and starts taking slow, deep breaths. He blocks out the hunger and shivering, blocks out everything except the need to not be _here_ anymore.

And it works. Leo opens his eyes and finds himself in his mother's garden.

"Oh, thank _god_ ," he gasps, staggering to his feet, knees weak with relief. "Oh, thank god, I--Mother? Father?"

There's not there. His mother's _always_ been there when he arrives in the garden, and he can't understand what it shouldn't be the same now that his father has joined her. As Leo turns around, looking for them, he starts to suspect that something is deeply wrong.

The cherry trees in the garden, always so vibrant, have grown grey and tired. The flowers have all disappeared, leaving an ugly mass of limp brown stems in their wake. The bridge rots over a stagnant stream, all the frogs and insects long gone. Leo strains his ears, but there's no sign of the ever-present bird song.

No. No, this doesn't make sense. He's been pushing himself to his limits, he's been searching and praying and hoping, they can't just be _gone._ "Mother?" he calls, letting panic creep into his voice. "Father?"

Oh, God, what if something got them, like Kitsune or the Rat King? What if they had needed him, but he wasn't there because he hadn't figured out how to get here yet? What if they're in pain, what if they really are _gone_ in every sense of the world, what if he's going to be alone forever?

Leo clamps his hands over his mouth, smothering a wail. Focus. Breathe. Stop whimpering like a child, pull yourself together. There's got to be a perfectly good explanation for this--

"They've moved on, young master."

Leo spins so fast he almost falls over. He almost lets out a shriek, but then he feels relieved because this must be just a _dream_ , because this can't be real even in a place as crazy as the astral plane, because this garden is a safe place, maybe the only safe place on this or any other level of reality...

...And there's no fucking way that Oroku Saki could be standing there, face smooth and unscarred, a look of false concern in those terrible dark eyes. Leo back away, his shell slamming into a tree trunk, wracked by a sudden urge to vomit even though he has nothing to throw up and isn't even in his physical body anymore.

"You're not real," he gasps. "You aren't here."

"I am," says the Shredder. "This is real, Leonardo, and your parents have taken their place on the karmic wheel."

" _Liar,"_ Leo snarls, angry briefly overcoming his terror. "They would _never_ abandon us like that." He stalks toward the man, hands clenched in fists at his sides. "What did you do to them? What did you _do_ , you sadistic piece of shit?"

"I mean you no harm," Saki says, raising his hands with a pathetic mask of sympathy on his face. "You are hurting yourself, Leonardo, and you need to sto--"

Leo lets out a shriek of hysterical laughter. "Are you kidding me? Do you really not have any new fucking material?" His astral form flickers, and a for a moment he's wearing the clothes he had when he was enslaved by the Foot: black mask, mechanical claws, suffocating jacket. "We've already _done_ this routine before, remember? Kindly Master Shredder, saving me from the big bad monsters?"

Saki bows his head, apparently deciding to play the repentant-villain act out for all it's worth. "I will never forgive myself for what I did to you, young master," he claims. "But--"

"Don't. Fucking. Call. Me. That." They're chest-to-chest now and Leo's blades are drawn, eyes locked on the Shredder's fists as he waits for the human to los his cool. He'll probably snap any second, but Leo decides to take advantage of the wishy-washy behavior while he can. "The truth," he growls, hands tight on his sword hilts to keep them from shaking. "Now."

Saki sighs. "Your parents have reunited and their spirits have left the astral plane to be reincarnated. Before he passed, your father charged me with looking after you and your siblings, to guard and guide you however I could."

Leo's heart stops and the garden tilts under his feet. _"Bullshit,"_ he breathes. "Bullshit, they wouldn't, they wouldn't..." _Abandon us. Abandon me._ "...they wouldn't leave _you_ in charge of us."And now he's truly afraid, because Saki would only be able to lie so confidently if something awful, something maybe _permanent,_ had happened to the souls of Splinter and Tang Shen.

"They have," Saki says. "And now I need you to wake up, and go back to the house _immediately,_ Leonardo, to warm yourself up and eat something. Your parents would not want you to take such risks with your health, and neither do I."

Leo almost drops his swords. "How, how do you--" But he already knows, the piece flying together in his head.

"You've been _spying_ on us?" he snarls, almost incredulous that even the Shredder would sink so low. "You sick perverted bastard, haven't you hurt and humiliated us enough? Do you _like_ watching our pain?" At this point, it's an honest question, considering the sheer amount of hell Oroku Saki has poured on the Hamato family.

Saki sighs, his eyes dripping with so much contrived sadness Leo wants to claw them out of his head. "I have done terrible things to you and yours," he says, "things I can never atone for. But there is much you do not understand, Leonardo. For much of my first two lives, I was influenced by the Dragon--"

" _That's_ your new excuse?" Leo asks. "You tortured and butchered anyone who ever looked at you wrong, you had my brother beaten within an inch of his life, you had your crazy bitch girlfriend stir my brain like _spaghetti_ , and it's all because the fucking _Dragon made you do it?"_

"Mind how you speak about Kitsune," Saki growls, something ugly flickering in his eyes.

Leo snickers. "There we go. That's the Shredder I know." He shifts into a fighting stance. "Come on, old man, let's play. You must be pretty rusty after lying in a coffin with maggots crawling up your ass for over a year."

Saki opens his mouth to say something, but Leo's already swinging his swords, one at his neck and the other at his torso. He doesn't know if this will do any real damage to the Shredder, and right now he doesn't really care. All he wants to do is see the motherfucker bleed.

But Saki _moves_ , faster than anyone should, seizing the blades and ripping them out of his hands. Leo staggers backward, thrown off balance, as Saki hurtles his swords in opposite directions. He tenses, waiting for Saki's claws to appear and slice his astral form apart.

Instead, Saki's hands slump back to his sides and he pulls on a new mask, this one of sad exhaustion. "Leonardo, I need you to listen to me, please. I am free of the Dragon for the _first time_ since my first birth. I have a chance of redemption, one that I refuse to waste. Your father saw this, that is why he--"

"DON'T FUCKING TALK ABOUT HIM!" Leo screams, and suddenly he can't control himself anymore. All the anger and terror and confusion and guilt and terrible, soul-wrenching pain has been _building_ and _building_ during this farce of a conversation, during every agonizing day since his father's death, during every painful moment of his two lifetimes.

It's too much, far too much, and he feels it spilling out of his far-too-small body. The astral plane senses his emotions, and responds.

His mother's garden explodes into flames.

Fierce blue fire erupts on the cherry trees, engulfs the bridge, raising across the dry grass like a bullet train. It's a thousand times deeper and fiercer and _hungrier_ than anything he summoned for the Rat King, quickly building into an inferno.The heat should be singing Leo's skin, but he doesn't feel anything.

Saki lurches backward at the sight, eyes wide with shock and maybe a little bit of fear. Leo smirks at the sight. 'What's wrong, Oroku? Scared of a little fire?" He waggles his fingers mockingly, and the flames respond, twisting and dancing in the air.

"Leonardo," Saki says, his own form lighting up with a blazing white online. "Leonardo, there is much you do you not understand--"

A fist of pure flame slams into his chest, sending Saki flying through the air. He crashes to a tree with an audible _crack_ of breaking bones and slips to the ground, smoking and twitching.

Leo strides towards him; there's a voice in his head whispering _stop, calm down,_ but it's not his _mother's_ voice or his _father's_ so why should he listen?

"I understand that you put me on my knees and butchered me like an animal," he says, standing over Saki. When Leo looks down, he sees the hem of a blue robe where his feet should be and pale, slender fingers adorning his hands. He's wearing his old body--his human, _normal_ body, the one Shredder _took_ from him.

"I understand that you ripped out my soul and turned me into a slave." The fire is devouring the dead garden now, closing in around them. "I understand that you have done everything in your power to destroy me and mine, since I was four years old. Do you deny this?"

"No," Saki whispers, surprising Leo. The man lies at the ground, blood streaming from his nose, gazing up with a look of...acceptance? He doesn't seem to notice the flames lapping at his skin.

His blank, peaceful expression almost makes Leo back away. Almost.

"Did all your brain cells rot away?" he asks quietly. "Did you really think we would ever forgive you, for anything?" He snaps his fingers, and a jet of blue fire darts down Saki's throat. He screams, twisting and thrashing.

A moment later, so does Leo.

As he crashes to his knees, he realizes how little he still understand. He does not _control_ the blue fire, he _is_ the blue fire. When the flames flowed inside Oroku Saki, into the depths of his soul, so did Leo.

 _Mind meld,_ he thinks, wanting to laugh insanely, and then he can't think anything at all. The memories are crushing him.

Not his memories--Saki. He sees a journey through the afterlife, from that first encounter with Splinter _\--Splinter!--_ to discovering the deceptions of Kitsune. He sees battles with zombies, some bearing his own face, and far worse monsters. He sees conversations with demons and Dragons and Dreamers, the exorcism of a parasitical soul.

He sees that Saki is still a monster, still someone who has done horrible things. And he also sees that everything Saki has told him--right here, right now--is true. Everything. Even his parents taking each other's hands and walking into the light, leaving their old lives behind for good.

Leaving _Leo and his brothers_ behind for good.

Even if he no longer has to fear Saki, he will _never_ forgive him. And his parents not only helped bring the man back, they _left_ him in the world, told him to _look after the children_ now that they didn't want to do it anymore.

He screams, and Saki screams in return. Because while Leo is seeing _his_ memories, Saki is seeing _Leo's_. He's seeing every moment of fear and pain and hunger, every humiliation, every loss. He is seeing some of his worst atrocities through the eyes of his victims. And the connection is strong enough for Leo to know the feeling is not pleasant, not in the slightest. If his soul didn't feel like it was being ripped apart he might think: _good._

They drown in fire together, white and blue. For a moment, they are creatures made purely of psychic agony, split down to the atom.

When it's over, Leo collapses to the ground--the real ground--shivering. He's _cold_ , he realizes suddenly, so _cold_ and so _hungry_ and everything hurts. His body is freezing while his brain is melting.

Someone's rubbing him, warming him up, and Leo finds himself being lifted into the air in strong arms. Someone carries him away from the river, staggering slightly as they go. 

"Father...?" he mumbles, as he starts to drift away. He can't remember the past conversation--can't remember anything, really, just blue heat and a faint sense of abandonment. But why should he feel abandoned? His father is right here, keeping him safe.

"Stay awake," says a strong, deep voice that sounds a little choked up. "Stay awake, Leonardo."

"M'kay," he mumbles, wiggling his toes and wondering if Father is going to toss him into the air, the way he did when Leo was very small.

There's a hiccup, followed by a soft, wet sniffle. "I'm sorry," the voice breathes. "I didn't know, not really...I am so sorry." Is Father crying? Maybe he ate an onion again, and he's sorry that he ate it. Silly Father, Leo wants to say, but nothing comes out.

He's set down on wooden planks--the porch--and winces as a painfully loud knocking rings through the air. It sounds like the kind of knocking that would make your knuckles hurt. Why don't his knuckles hurt? Do they hurt? Who's knocking?

There's the softest brush of a cloak over his face, and then he's alone. Not for long, though, because then the door clicks open and he's bathed in a square of light.

"What the fu--" Jenny's voice cuts off abruptly. "Oh shit, _Leo!_ Donnie! Donnie, get over here!"

Things turn into a blur after that. He's hauled into a bed and fed some foul-tasting medicine. He has a distinct memory of being asked how long it's been since he last ate, which he remembers because of the horrified looks on everyone's faces when he gives an honest answer.

When he recovers a few days later, he's stuffed full of food and lectures, combined with merciless interrogations. He remembers trying to find his parents on the astral plane, and he remembers going in the river, but after that things get murky. He thinks he was screaming at some point; for some reason he remembers fire.

The sharpest memory he stays with him is the sense that his parents are gone, for good. The concept is harder to swallow than broken glass, but he does. He doesn't yet have an idea how he's going to go on, he just knows that he has to.

To Oroku Saki, watching Leo from the shadows of the woods, that's enough. For now, anyway.


End file.
